Music playing view

Hi
now that my 1st gen wdtv in my vacation home had come to death :cry: (although it only has been the remote) i decided to buy a SMP.

fw upgrade to 2.02.32

Grid view was now available and with that i believe came the new now playing view for music, which is looking prettier than the previous known on the livehub etc

but after selecting music files for playing i jumped around in the settings etc. Then i wanted to go back to the music playing view but only could get into this ugly list view, no chance to see the nicer view from play start again. I had to stop and restart.

In grid view there is no chance to get back to now playing at all. Or am i just too blind to see?

Btw, my SMP always starts with the first song in alphabetical order after pressing an artist folder in shuffle mode. Why? I tried 10 times.

bessa wrote:Grid view was now available and with that i believe came the new now playing view for music, which is looking prettier than the previous known on the livehub etc

i reckon i looks like the Gen1 view for music

bessa wrote:In grid view there is no chance to get back to now playing at all. Or am i just too blind to see?

good question … i don’t think GRID has a “Now Playing” Icon like MOCHI does

bessa wrote:Btw, my SMP always starts with the first song in alphabetical order after pressing an artist folder in shuffle mode. Why? I tried 10 times.

lazy firmware programming ? … no beta tester ever tested “shuffle mode”  ?:wink:

i guess you could try the previous firmware and see if the bug exists ? (and lose GRID UI in the process)

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming/2-02-32-Firmware-no-longer-allows-content/m-p/781937#M32423

Hi joey. Thanx for your answer and rollback instructions

but as i will use the smp only on holiday so my kids will have the possibility to watch movies here,i think i will keep this machine as weak as it is. For music i will use my smartphone which allows all the features i miss on the wd

in over 33000 posts nobody mentioned this huge bug. Do you all only use it with movies?

bessa wrote:
Hi joey. Thanx for your answer and rollback instructions

Do you all only use it with movies?

Yep  :smiley:     well sort of … i’ve been using my Raspberry Pi2 more and more these days for watching Movies

my WDTV’s are a ‘fallback device’ if any funny goes on with the RPi2

the only time i listen to music is if i’m driving or walking … which i also use a smartphone for

i will have to test the RPi2 one day with ‘music’ … i know “gapless audio” is supported, which the WDTV can’t do

… who know’s, maybe “shuffle mode” works correctly too ! :wink:

When you go back to the Home screen in Grid View, the current playing track is displayed along the top. You can scroll up and highlight that and when you select it you go back to your music screen. Is this what you are looking for?

And regarding shuffle, I am not sure why you are seeing this behavior. This was a bug in the older versions and was resolved for music. I play music DAILY served up from a media server and I do not get the same first track. However, when I serve up images from the same media server in shuffle I do get the first image.

My solution in the image case was to create an image that says “Loading” and labeled it as “#0.jpg” so it always plays first.

For music, before they fixed the bug, I did the same thing with a 2-second silent “#0.mp3” track.

1 Like

Thanx horizons1
that worked. I disabled the music info panel cause it always disturbed me. Activating it allows you to return to the now playing view.
But i tried 11th time - the player starts with the same track. I don’t think that placing a fake file in hundreds of folders is the best solution. WD should find another with next fw.
but thanx again for the solution for the main problem. :slight_smile:

Hi Bessa,

If you are using Media Library then you don’t need hundreds of fake files, only one. Media Library will index it and put it at the top regardless of where it is. To be safe, you can just stick it in whatever folder contains the track that plays first now.

As for why you are seeing the behavior and I am not, I have a theory. First of all, I do not use Media Library, relying instead on my media server (Tversity) to handle the indexing. So YMMV.

When you start playing your shuffled library, where do you press Play? On a folder or from a list of tracks? When I view my music in the Tversity media server, I usually press Play from the “All” folder pictured below.

The first track is ALWAYS random.

However, if I press Play from inside the All folder (below) then it’s somewhat obvious that the highlighted track will be the first one played, random after that.

I assume you are doing everything correctly - just trying to narrow down the differences.

Ymmv? Had to google it :wink:

First, yes media library is on cause i’d lose too much features. Then, i have an external drive with all my media connected to the wd. No network connex within my holiday home.
like at home with my livehub i use to navigate in folders sorted by artists. So, most times i highlight an artist folder and press play in shuffle mode and i don’t see this behaviour on my hub. Sometimes i let the wd sort by genre if i am in the mood for a specific one and let it play.
so your solution won’t do if i don’t have a fake file in EVERY folder. I’d never play ALL tracks because i don’t want to hear xmas songs in summer holidays :slight_smile: or all the comedy tracks or my daughter’s disney musicals etc.
So i still think wd should improve the fw.

in order to check your solution with the info panel i recognized another bug: if you are in video library while playing music and highlight the info panel in order to get back to now playing screen the wd freezes completely. Had to take the power cable off and in.
i decided now to only use it for my kids to watch movies. For music it is nearly unusable.
thanx for your efforts, horizons1.

Ah, I see now what you mean by hundreds of folders. Still, I am baffled by why you have the issue and I don’t, unless they fixed it when playing shuffled music from a media server but not from Media Library indexed folders. Sounds like a lack of thorough QA testing.

I can do everything you describe in terms of playing individual folders or genres with Tversity. I, too, have my music in folders by artist, although I have a deeper level where individual albums are in their own folder. I can press play on any folder containing MP3’s and it will play only them. I can play certain Genres, Artists, Years, etc. too. 

I am not getting paid to endorse them, by the way :slight_smile: I’m just saying I think there is a better way to handle music libraries, especially large ones, other than using the built-in Media Library.

Also, out of curiosity, I tried playing a folder full of MP3s a few times just to see if I got the same first track. I did not. This reinforces my belief that the shuffle issue is related to Media Library.

Really could be that it depends whether you’re using a nas or the in-built library, of course.

Sorry, i don’t know when this player came out (2013?), but it claims to be a full media player and it’s definitely not. Movies play fine in almost every format, i never had a file that has not been played. I accepted the reduced possibilities on my older livehub but i expect a new gen device to perform new gen-like with every media type than this over expensive device (95€).
I spent 3 or 4 € each on play store for 2 apps fitting my needs with music services (one at home network and one on the go) more than the smp ever will or can do. I am really disappointed and i am thinking about to return it before holiday end within 14-day-return.

Wow, nearly 100 Farenheit !!!